The Super Bowl. It is the culmination of an entire year’s worth of work for 106 players and their coaches. It is the gladiatorial spectacle writ large, an entire nation the stage, hundreds of millions of spectators enthralled by 60 minutes of savagery, a chance for three hours to be part of something greater than an individual life. It is the chance for an obscure name to clamber atop the pedestal of greatness or for a celebrated veteran to ruin a career with one ill-timed drop or errant pass. It is the opportunity to rise above the mundane and the petty and achieve immortality. It is everything.

The Super Bowl. It is nothing. It is the overindulged watching the overcompensated while marketing companies rub their well-manicured hands with glee. It is the definition of materialistic consumption as million-dollar advertisements vie with one another to see which can blare the loudest, bedazzled peacocks and sequined foxes strutting their wares for an insatiable audience drunk off emotion and liquor and too many mini hotdogs such a steal at only $3 a box and, no, don’t ask what’s in them.

The Super Bowl. It is a celebration of life. It is the child who grew up with a blind father and almost had to quit playing football to support his family never having to worry about money again. It is the receiver who, despite all odds, was able to fill in at cornerback and make a key play to keep his team in the game. It is the fan who found the strength to rise above the miserable conditions at home, inspired by his favorite team, now a doctor or teacher or mentor and cheering that team on from the stands. It is that penultimate story of the quarterback no one thought would amount to anything, now living the Hollywood dream with a supermodel wife and widely regarded as the best player at his position and, boy, if you tried to pitch that as a movie script, would you be laughed out of the room.

The Super Bowl. It is the funeral march of despair. It is the same quarterback, slowly walking off the field after having come so close to victory only to watch it snatched away by an improbable circus catch, the width of a blade of grass the difference between perfection and an offseason of what-ifs. It is the bitter taste left in the mouth of an entire organization, one some have felt more keenly than most, to travel so far and walk away with only a consolation “Division Champion” ring that most would rather melt down than look at, so stinging are the memories. It is the knowledge that on the one day when it mattered the most, at the pinnacle of greatness, you JUST WEREN’T GOOD ENOUGH GET A JOB YOU LAZY BUM, never mind that those words will echo through your mind long after the lights are shut down and the last piece of confetti is swept away, perhaps to linger the rest of your life. It is the sickening thwack of an angry husband striking his wife, unable to articulate the pent-up frustration and rage he experiences from watching what is, after all, only a game.

The Super Bowl. It is the pathos of the stage on a scale Sophocles could only dream of, a million different story lines merging and swirling together to form one vast tapestry of drama, comedy and tragedy – a resonating stillness of chaos that brings the audience and actors alike so close to a transcendental moment that can never be captured, only experienced. It is the shining instant of perfection, but it is not guaranteed, never guaranteed, only the chance to participate, and is it any wonder that it happens on a Sunday?

The Super Bowl. It is the ultimate dichotomy, at once both a celebration of socialist equality amid the thunderous roar of a capitalistic juggernaut, a dance that any team can attend with that promiscuous belle of the ball, Advertising. It is our society, our culture, our America. It is the gloriously triumphant epitaph that will one day adorn our tombstone of decadence, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.